Thursday, February 4, 2016

Motors: Not Just For Motorcycles

Get ready for a wild ride, with bicycle motors, stolen parrots, iPads with x-ray technology and a good friend to take the fall.
Femke van den Driessche just became the face of the latest scandal to rock cycling. The UCI impounded her pit bike at a race in Belgium for suspected motor use. The UCI used what it vaguely referred to as tablet based technology to identify that her pit bike had some sort of motor in it.

Femke in action

The UCI Officials took the bike apart and found an undisclosed kind of motor in the frame.

A distressed Femke van den Driessche

Initially, her father jumped to her defense, claiming the bike was not hers. A male friend came to bat for Femke and said the bike as his own.

...

To make things more weird, her dad and brother are facing charges for stealing rare birds from a pet shop.

Stolen bird in question

Depending whether the UCI buys the friend bike story, Femke could be facing hefty fines in the thousands of dollars (8-10 parakeets, street value) and an unknown length ban.

I can't get over the parrot thing. I thought a family into cycling would have high enough moral standards not to be stealing birds.